


For Auld Lang Syne

by Lady_Cleo



Category: British Actor RPF, Doctor Who (2005), Doctor Who RPF
Genre: F/M, Happy Who Year, Mattex, New Year's Eve, Spoilers!, happy new year, save the mattex!
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-01-01
Updated: 2015-01-01
Packaged: 2018-03-04 17:03:52
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,516
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3075011
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lady_Cleo/pseuds/Lady_Cleo
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>it's been a long year. now it's down to the countdown on New Year's Eve...</p>
            </blockquote>





	For Auld Lang Syne

**Author's Note:**

> my versions of Auld Lang Syne are as follows  
> Mairi Campbell for that haunting Scottish voice (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PK-E1f-YKBA)  
> and for the saxophone (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EBnuQJbFJ5Q)

**10**

It’s been a long year. Fan questions and crazy shoots and the strange freedom of not being the Doctor.

But he misses her. Occasional dates and girls in bars and a few too many fans wanting to play the “Uncomfortable Touch Game” in photos- he doesn’t even have to fake his discomfort. And nothing's the same without her.

**9**

It’s been a long year. An officially grown up daughter, guest spots on Arrow, a series she’d loved shooting, and a semi-secret engagement.

But she misses him. An inundation of fan photos and mentions on late night television and his eyes staring out at her from computer screens and reruns and movie posters and magazines and the dreams she has in the wee small hours make it impossible not to.

**8**

He wasn’t expecting to be alone. He doesn’t have a girlfriend- hell he doesn’t have a booty to call, even if Harry is always warning him about not picking up girls on major holidays. His last project wrapped before Christmas and he doesn’t have anything major for weeks. Karen is visiting Arthur who is still dazzling audiences in New York, Jenna’s off on a family trip with Richard and his parents, and Laura is on a ski trip with James.

He’s always welcome at home, or at the Moffatt compound, but nothing feels right, so he’d said he was busy and left it at that. Now alone he sits, remarkably unnoticed in a smoky West London pub, fending off the odd advance from increasingly tipsy girls and nursing a lukewarm beer.

After the year he’s had - jeez, the last **half decade** he’s had – he should be on top of the world, and he is. But man he wished it wasn’t so lonely at the top.

**7**

She was expecting to be alone. Not for the holidays – memories of the pink tree and baking Christmas cookies with Sal flood her with a smile – but more in general. She has a lot of love to give, but the people she chooses to give it to are hit and miss when it comes to giving it back.

She loves her family. She adores her daughter, and it’s mutual. She loves Jenn as a sister and her goddaughters like her own. She loves her coworkers, and is getting a decent crop of offers in the new year – or so her agent had to say this morning. She loves Kaz and Arthur and Jenna and Steven and Sue… and Matt.

But she has two ex-husbands; she's kind of stopped expecting to have a man love her back. Her track record makes her wary, and to have a man who loves her so much he’s put a ring on it is… well, unexpected. And she wonders… Maybe it’s the vortex of past and future that is this night, but she tries to peer through the veil of what lies ahead… even if she can’t help but look back.

**6**

Less than an hour to go and the revelry in the pub is getting raucous. There’s nothing but noise, light, color, and too many people. So Matt leaves, figuring he’ll step out for a smoke – even though it’s been months – or maybe just go for a walk. Fresh air, even if it’s freezing, is always good to clear your head.

**5**

It’s been in the back of her mind all day, through last minute party preparations and cooking and baking and stocking the bar and taking calls and figuring out what on earth she was going to wear.

Now the guests are arriving and she nips into the back to slip into her dress. It’s black velvet, a perfect winter fabric and touchable besides, with a green sash across her hips and a crown of silver stars in her hair. She touches up her lipstick, adds an extra pin or two to her curls, dabs a fresh line of perfume behind her ears and into the shadow of her cleavage.

She doesn’t realize her humming has bloomed to singing until she turns to the window to draw it closed and spots the movement in her reflected lips.

_We’ll take a cup of kindness yet… for auld lang syne…_

**4**

Somewhere in the distance, he hears a voice crooning _Auld Lang Syne_. It’s a good song for the holiday: about letting go of the past, but still remembering… for old times’ sake.

And with a start he realizes it’s Alex’s voice. That low, sweet, melodious tone stretching up to accommodate a high note here and there, lilting on the chill breeze that’s drifting through the frigid night air. It’s haunting and soothing at the same time, a dichotomous performance so like the woman performing it.

And as the countdown begins, Matt starts to run.

**3**

He’s been running forever, through time and space and this strange neverending countdown to a New Year he feels might never arrive if he doesn’t find her soon. His lungs are burning like a firework, and there are live wires arcing and sparking where his veins used to be. It’s not the overexerting battery acid sort of burn that comes from pushing yourself too hard; this is electrifying, like he’s lit from within, like the energy of the universe is charging him to his destination.

Then with the suddenness of smacking into a cloaked TARDIS, he stops. He’s staring at a door. It’s a familiar door, but he’s filled with nerves anyway. There are a million and one ways this could go wrong, and one way it can go so utterly right. So he rolls his quivering hand into a fist, raises it slowly, and starts to knock.

There are lights in all the visible windows and plenty of party noise from within- and of course he shouldn’t have expected her to be alone, but the volume of the frivolity threatens to leave him unheard and he has to see her.

His knuckles bruise against the wood as he raps again, more insistently, the fusillade turning fast and desperate as the Old Year starts to die around him…

**2**

Just as Alex is charging glasses with sparkling cider and fresh champagne, there’s a knock on the door.

No one else seems to hear it over the music and the chatter, excitement over the impending new year tangible like static electricity. But she does, so she sets her bottles down and slips around guests and reaches for the door handle.

“Darling, you made it!” she exclaims delighted, grabbing the hand of the man on her stoop. The countdown is loud and only slightly out of sync as her guests begin to shout: _10… 9… 8…_

“And not a moment too soon, it seems,” he replies, stepping in and closing the door.

_3…. 2…. 1…. Happy New Year!!!_ Party favors and snap crackers and cheers and confetti and streamers and all manner of affectionate contact explode in her living room, and Alex just smiles.

She turns to her fiance, letting him tip her back into a Hollywood parody of a kiss- something he almost never does, but they _are_ in California celebrating London time before Los Angeles. And if her eyes close too tight against the odd sting of tears, it's because she's so happy.

Her friends and family are near and dear- and those who can’t be have called and Skyped – but she’s aware there’s someone missing. He’s been missing a while, and eventually she’ll stop missing him. She just has to close her eyes a little tighter and when she opens them, it’ll be a new year and things will be different.

**1**

The door swings open and a girl in a microscopic dress and a crooked party hat appears. Her laughter dies as she focuses on him, and she manages a “Oh! Hello. Can I help you, love?” before a man wearing a tie around his head passes her a glass of something sparkling and pink with a smacking kiss.

The new arrival eyes Matt blearily, nuzzling the girl possessively as he asks, “Whozzat?”

He clears his throat and explains he’s trying to find someone. “Alex? Is she-”

But Tie-Man cuts him off with a slurred explanation that it’s not their flat- it’s a new acquisition of the guy upstairs, and his name is something like Steve. Mini-girl is a little more lucid and softly apologetic when she whispers a “sorry. Hope you find her.”

The door closes in his face and he wonders if it should’ve ended any other way. Tears prick at his eyes but he attributes them to the cold night air as he turns up the collar on his coat and starts trudging back to the heart of town. His eyes flick to the moon barely visible through the haze and lights of the city and he watches his words float away as he whispers, “Happy New Year, Kingston… wherever you are.”

The plaintive wail of a solitary saxophone plays out _Auld Lang Syne_ as he puts one foot in front of the other, making his way alone.

But there’s always next year.

**Author's Note:**

> please don't kill me! I had an idea and I ran with it. I wasn't trying to be angsty; it just happened.  
> wishing everyone a happy Who year- and yes that includes our darlings.  
> other than that, first Mattex of the new year, I guess. I'm gonna grab a bottle and hide out in my pillow fort.


End file.
